took a break from poker and never been the same

hello all
i took a break from poker for about a year,and since i've come back i just have not played the same,i'm not sure if it's because i'm playing on a new site but i just don't feel like a winning poker player,before i took the break i was consistently cashing in big field tournaments,however nowadays i'm lucky if i cash maybe 3/4 times in a week. Basically what i'm asking is has anyone ever had this happen to them and what advice they could give me
thank you
alex

How much did you play before your break and how much have you played since you came back?

Perhaps a little elf drilled a hole in your brain, right where the poker skills and knowledge are stored, and its been slowly dripping out for the last year without you knowing.

Its as good an answer as any, given the information at hand.

The game of poker is constantly evolving. It could be the game has changed since you last played, but your skills haven't.
You never stop learning in poker, its ongoing.

The differences between sites (blind structure, game availability, player pool...) can take some getting used to. Especially if going from Full Tilt/pokerstars to one of the smaller sites. If you haven't been playing again for long it may just be your out of practice and not used to the new poker site.

Depending on at least a couple of factors. the changes in the game, the biggest being Black Friday a year ago. Many US players have either stopped playing or reduced how much they play because most sites are closed to them. Many people feel more poor players have done so than decent ones, which means the average strength of games on sites that are open to US players is now higher.

And how much have you played recently? "Consistently" placing in large field MTTs means what? Maybe 15%? If your recent sample size is small, your ITM in them may just be smaller than before due to normal variance.

variance can be a biatch. keep on truckin sir

I took a long break from poker and started playing again recently and had to get myself used to all the nl donks and scrubs again, it's just a matter of time.

Mcevo2k9 said:

i was consistently cashing in big field tournaments,however nowadays i'm lucky if i cash maybe 3/4 times in a week. Basically what i'm asking is has anyone ever had this happen to them
thank you
alex

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a few times but not often enough , any advice .

how big are the " big fields " and how many are you playing ?

Tino11 said:

The game of poker is constantly evolving. It could be the game has changed since you last played, but your skills haven't.
You never stop learning in poker, its ongoing.

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Pretty much this. You also need to adjust your game depending on what site you play at. Being a US player and playing at Bovada has thrown my game for a loop. I've had to do some adjustment to stay profitable.

ofc u cant play same after a brake, give some time to your self, give your best and it will be fine.
btw why did u change site on which did you play if it was good for you?

I think that is the nature of taking a break. If an athlete takes a year off there is going to be rust coming back. Think if you took a year off work, marriage, kids, etc; it is going to have an affect.

Where is OP?

LarryT503 said:

I think that is the nature of taking a break. If an athlete takes a year off there is going to be rust coming back. .

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this ^
& one would assume this is obvious for someone who's formerly been a winning player... no?
I can feel a difference after taking a week off.

suggestions:
review HH's for entire tournaments (use something like PopoPop hand replayer)

watch a couple of training vids. (if you have access to some)

rail some tournaments online (& review hands that went to showdown through HandReplayer)

yes its normal.. u need to be in touch with the poker games to have a better graph. if u stop playing you may lose some tricks and tips and also many will update themselves on the game with new approaches.. try to be in poker games.

I played online today for the first time in over a year,and finished 6th in a 90 man SnG on Pokerstars. It feels good to be back.

Standard play has changed dramatically in the past few years. I know when i first started playing cash games people would limp or min raise quite often. Nowadays the standard opening raise preflop is around 3 or 4 x the BB. But what do I know, I play .10/.25 haha.

you know how to bumb threads from months ago.... jk. i just got real disappointed when i read half of it and then realized it was from so long ago.

Here's a tip: If you were consistentely cashing in big tournaments....You should not have taken a brek for a year.

I have had this happen to me you just need to be patient and think of a way u want to go about playing the game again !!!

You just need some time to get back into your stride. It will happen soon enough if your a winning player.

i had a similar problem. i found the cure was to go back down to low stacks and learn the basics all over again as you can forget some simple stuff while not playing for so long

Shwiggler said:

Pretty much this. You also need to adjust your game depending on what site you play at. Being a US player and playing at Bovada has thrown my game for a loop. I've had to do some adjustment to stay profitable.

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This. Oh, and also some variance and getting warmed up again. Are you consistently getting close to the money but bubbling out or are you playing too loose in the early stages? A longer break is going to be different than a shorter one for sure.

The same thing happened to me but I started getting back in the swing after a few tournaments. I think it was a mixture of variance and the fact that I just didn't have the feel for it anymore.

I buckled down and kept at it and started really concentrating on the players at the tables again (something I wasn't doing my first few tournies back) and taking notes. This brought me back into the cash the last few tournaments I played.